These network installation instructions are for RTG Bills Version 2.01 through 2.16. For later versions, look here.

1. Type Of Network
   
2. Where To Install RTG Bills
   
3. Install RTG Bills On A Peer-To-Peer Network
   
4. Install RTG Bills On A File Server
   
5. Test The Installation
   
6. Install RTG Bills On Another Workstation
   
7. Multi-User Conflicts
   
8. Who Needs RTG Timer?
   
9. Share Data With RTG Bills
   
10. Standalone Operation of RTG Timer
    
11. Where To Install RTG Timer
    
12. Install Timer On Each PC
    
13. Sharing A PC
    
14. Set Up RTG Timer
    
15. Transfer Time From RTG Timer To RTG Bills
    

RTG Bills and RTG Timer are compatible with any local area network (LAN) that supports Windows PCs.

You can use the built-in networking of Windows, which is an example of a peer-to-peer network. On such a network, each PC can read and write to the hard disks on the other PCs, if you give them permission to do so.

You can also use RTG Bills and RTG Timer on a network consisting of a file server and workstations. The file server can run Windows Server 2003, Novell NetWare, or any other network operating system that supports Windows PCs as workstations. On such a network, each PC can read and write to the hard disks on the file server, if you give them permission to do so, but they cannot read or write to the hard disks on the other workstations.

The distinction between a file server and a workstation has to do with the role it plays. The hardware itself could be the same - an ordinary PC - although typical file servers are a heavy-duty version of the standard PC, designed for greater speed and higher reliability.

The RTG Bills program files and the RTG Bills database must always be in the same directory (or "folder").

On a peer-to-peer network, choose one PC on which to install RTG Bills and its database. RTG Bills will work a little faster on the PC where it is installed, so if it will be used on one PC more than the others, choose that PC. Other PCs will read the program from that one, and they will access the database over the network. The other PCs must be able to read and write to the directory where RTG Bills is installed.

If you have a file server, you must install RTG Bills on a hard disk on the file server. Set the permissions on the network so that any user who will use RTG Bills can read and write to the directory on the file server where RTG Bills is installed.

On a peer-to-peer network, install RTG Bills on the local hard disk (usually the C drive) of one PC. The standard installation puts the program files and the database in the directory C:\Program Files\Rtgbills. Some files are also installed in the Windows system directory.

If other PCs on the network will also need RTG Bills, make sure that this PC is "sharing" the directory where you installed RTG Bills. In other words, other PCs must have permission to read and change the files in that directory. In effect, this PC will be the server for other PCs on the network.

If you have a file server, create a directory on the server for RTG Bills. Name the directory rtgbills. However, do not start the installation program on the file server. Instead, you will start the installation program on a workstation.

Set the permissions on the directory so that other PCs can read and change the files.

Let's suppose that you created the directory C:\Program Files\rtgbills on the server. The workstations can refer to this directory as \\MyServer\rtgbills, where MyServer is the name of your file server.

Now start the installation program on a workstation. When you are asked for the destination directory, be sure to enter \\MyServer\rtgbills instead of the standard directory C:\Program Files\Rtgbills. The installation program will warn you that the directory already exists, which is fine.

When the installation is complete, the program and database will be on the server. However, some files are also installed in the local Windows system directory of the workstation. That's why you started the installation program on the workstation: certain system files must be on every PC that uses RTG Bills, even though the program and its data are on the file server.

At this point you should be able to start RTG Bills from the PC you did the installation on. Try it to be sure it works.

On a peer-to-peer network, the program is loading from the local hard disk. If you have a file server, the program is loading from the file server's hard disk.

Most installations of RTG Bills use it on one PC. If there are other users, they usually use RTG Timer instead of RTG Bills.

However, RTG Bills is a fully multi-user program. That means it can be used by several people at the same time. Why would you want to do that? Here are a few reasons:

1. Clients and matters can only be entered into RTG Bills. If you want more than one person to be able to do this data entry task, you will need to use RTG Bills on more than one PC.
   
   
2. Only RTG Bills can print prebills and bills.
   
   
3. Only RTG Bills can create reports, such as the Matter Aging report. If you want an attorney to be able to print this report, for example, then you must give him or her the ability to use RTG Bills. (RTG Timer has its own reports, but they only show the fees and expenses entered into RTG Timer on one PC.)

If you don't need to use RTG Bills from another PC, skip the rest of this section.

At this point we assume you want to use RTG Bills on another PC in addition to the one you just set up.

Go to the second PC and double-click My Network Places or Network Neighborhood. Verify that you can see the directory where you installed RTG Bills on the first computer. We'll assume it is named \\MyServer\rtgbills. Even if you have a peer-to-peer network, that first PC is, in effect, your file server.

Now start the installation program on this PC. When you are asked for the destination directory, be sure to enter \\MyServer\rtgbills instead of the standard directory C:\Program Files\Rtgbills. The installation program will warn you that the directory already exists, which is fine.

It may seem redundant to install the program into the same directory, when you just did that from the first PC. However, you need to get the proper files in the Windows system directory of each PC, and this procedure will do that. Also, doing the installation from this second PC will put RTG Bills on the Start menu of this PC and it will put a shortcut to RTG Bills on the Windows Desktop.

Test the installation by starting RTG Bills from the second PC.

Do more people need RTG Bills? Just repeat this process. Go to the next PC and install RTG Bills into the shared directory (\\MyServer\rtgbills\ in our example).

You may occasionally see multi-user conflicts in RTG Bills. For example, one user may lock a portion of the database while editing a matter and that could prevent another user from editing the same matter, or even a different one. The program will detect this situation and display a message saying that the matter may be in use.

Certain operations cannot be performed by two people at the same moment, such as printing bills. Here again, the program will detect the conflict and tell you about it. Once the bills have been sent to Windows for printing, even though they may not have finished printing yet, the program is free to print again.

RTG Timer is used to enter fees and expenses. That's all it does, so it is simpler to use than RTG Bills. Also, RTG Timer has a stopwatch so each timekeeper can time their work as they do it.

In a typical small installation, an assistant or bookkeeper uses RTG Bills to enter new clients and matters, enter payments received from clients, and print bills and reports. That person does not need RTG Timer.

If that person enters all the fees and expenses for the firm, then RTG Timer is not required. Fees and expenses can be entered directly into RTG Bills.

However, any timekeeper who wants to time work as it is performed needs RTG Timer. We also recommend that anyone who will enter fees and expenses, and nothing more, should use RTG Timer instead of RTG Bills.

You are not limited in the number of users who can install RTG Bills or RTG Timer, assuming they all share the same RTG Bills database. However, you need a separate timekeeper license for each timekeeper you want to see in RTG Timer. Each timekeeper license comes with a unique timekeeper key, which you enter into RTG Bills. Each timekeeper who has a timekeeper key entered into RTG Bills will appear in the list of timekeepers when you start RTG Timer.

When you buy RTG Bills and RTG Timer, you get one timekeeper key. This key is always the same, and you can find it in the help file in RTG Bills. Even the demo program has this key, so you can try out RTG Timer with the demo version of RTG Bills.

RTG Timer can get shared information (clients, matters, timekeepers, and codes) from the RTG Bills database. You just have to tell Timer the directory (on the network) that contains Bills (which is \\MyServer\rtgbills in all of our previous examples). We'll see how to do this later.

The fees and expenses you enter into RTG Timer are stored in its private database. When you decide those transactions are complete, you release them, which copies them into the RTG Bills database. Now they are visible in RTG Bills, where they can be modified, billed, etc.

We have found this arrangement faster and more reliable than having each timekeeper enter fees and expenses directly into the shared RTG Bills database.

It is also possible to copy the clients, matters, timekeepers, and codes from RTG Bills into the private RTG Timer database. Then RTG Timer will work when it is not connected to RTG Bills over a network. Examples would be a notebook PC when you are out of the office, a home PC, or an office PC that is not connected to a network. This situation is called standalone or remote operation.

For standalone operation, you can use floppy disks to transfer data between RTG Bills and RTG Timer. RTG Bills will write the clients, matters, timekeepers, and codes onto a floppy disk. RTG Timer will read that information from the floppy disk into its private database.

Fees and expenses entered into RTG Timer can be written to a floppy disk when they are released. RTG Bills can read the transactions from the floppy disk into the RTG Bills database.

Of course, if you run RTG Bills and RTG Timer on networked computers, you should not use floppy disks to transfer data between the two programs. A network connection is faster and more reliable than floppy disks.

See RTG Timer: Standalone Operation for setup instructions.

The two basic rules for RTG Timer installation are:

• Install RTG Timer in a separate directory for each RTG Timer user.
• The RTG Timer program and the RTG Timer database must be in the same directory.

We suggest you accomplish this in one of two ways:

• Method 1
  Install RTG Timer on each PC in C:\Program Files\Rtgbills (not in the shared directory, \\MyServer\rtgbills).
  
  
• Method 2
  If you have a file server, install RTG Timer on the server in a different directory for each user. Suggested directories would be \\MyServer\rtgbills\user1, \\MyServer\rtgbills\user2, and so on. You can use the actual user initials for the directory names, if you wish (e.g., \\MyServer\rtgbills\rih for user rih).

The advantage of Method 1 is that you can use RTG Timer even if the server is not working. However, to do that, you must copy the clients, matters, timekeepers, and codes from RTG Bills to RTG Timer before the problem arises. That's what File > Import does in RTG Timer. Then, if the network is not available, the RTG Timer user simply switches from the RTG Bills database to the local RTG Timer database.

The advantage of Method 2 is that all the databases are on the server, so if you back up the server, you are assured of having a backup of the RTG Timer data that has not yet been released to RTG Bills. If you use Method 1, you can set up File > Backup to back up the RTG Timer data to the server, but then each Timer user has to remember to do the backup regularly.

Recommendation: Use Method 1 on a peer-to-peer network and Method 2 if you have a file server.

It is important to use the RTG Timer installation program on every PC that will use RTG Timer. It might seem that for Method 2, which stores the programs on a file server, you could set up several users all from the same PC. While this would put the right files on the server, it would not put the necessary system files and Start menu items on each PC. You should, instead, use the RTG Timer installation program on every PC from which someone will use RTG Timer.

If you don't install RTG Timer on each PC, you will get error messages about missing components when you start RTG Timer.

It is possible to have two people share a PC. Perhaps Joan uses the PC on Monday and Wednesday, while John uses it on Tuesday and Thursday.

If you use Method 1, then you will have to specify two different directories on the local PC, one for each user. You might use C:\Program Files\Rtgbills\joan and C:\Program Files\Rtgbills\john. However, the Start menu will only have one set of menu entries, and you will have to create a second set for the second user yourself. (When you do the installation for John, it will replace the Start menu items previously created for Joan.)

If you use Method 2, you also have separate directories for each user, but they are on the file server instead of the local hard disk (drive C). Once again, you must create a second set of Start menu entries yourself.

There is one setting in RTG Timer that you must change in order for it to work properly over the network.

1. Start RTG Timer and choose Setup > Other.
2. On the Database tab, make sure From RTG Bills database is selected. In the box, Look for the RTG Bills database in this folder, type in the directory where RTG Bills is installed. For all of our examples, this was \\MyServer\rtgbills.
3. Click the Save button to save these changes.

By design, RTG Timer stores fees and expenses in a private database. It does not write these transactions into the RTG Bills database. This is always true, even on a network.

When a person using RTG Timer has entered transactions and would like to bill them, it is necessary to release the transactions. RTG Timer has a button labeled Release for this purpose, or you can use the menu choice File > Release Items. When RTG Timer releases fee and expense transactions, they are written directly into the RTG Bills database.

Of course, RTG Timer can only write released transactions into the RTG Bills database if the two programs are on the same computer, or if they can communicate over a network. If the two programs cannot communicate, another approach is necessary. For such standalone operation of RTG Timer, releasing the transactions writes them to a disk file. Typically, that file will be on a floppy disk, so you can take it to the computer that has RTG Bills installed. Then, when you start RTG Bills, it will see the RTG Timer transactions and offer to read them. You can also read them if RTG Bills is already running by choosing File > Read Items from the menu.

If you release transactions from RTG Timer but RTG Bills cannot find them, then either RTG Timer wrote them in the wrong place or RTG Bills is looking for them in the wrong place.

First start RTG Timer and choose Setup > Other. Click the Release tab. Check that the directory entered here is the directory where you want the released transactions to be written. Typically this would be the floppy disk, A:\, or another removable disk.

Start RTG Bills and choose Setup > Other. Click the Timer tab. Check that the directory entered here is where you put the released transactions. Typically, again, this would be the floppy disk, A:\, or another removable disk.

If the directory was set wrong in RTG Timer, it may have written some released transactions in the wrong place. To retrieve them, first start RTG Bills and read any Timer transactions it finds. Then move the file Timer.xfr from the place where RTG Timer wrote it (perhaps on the local drive, C:\Program Files\Rtgbills), to where RTG Bills expects it. Finally, start RTG Bills again to read the Timer transactions.

Keep in mind that this process of writing transactions to a file with RTG Timer and reading them from a file with RTG Bills only applies to standalone operation. When the two programs can communicate, the transactions are copied from the RTG Timer database into the RTG Bills database as soon as RTG Timer releases them.